The other night I was at a Youth event and they were talking about "Threats" to the youth group. One of the items they wrote down was that social media is a threat to youth group growth. I have a lot of experience with using Facebook and Twitter for Kingdom impact so I was curious to figure out how social media can threaten our churches and youth groups. Don't get me wrong, I know about the potential threats that are in the world. Living in the Middle East kind of prepares you to see potential threats especially with information in the "online" world.

In America I feel like most parents are terrified of social media. They seem afraid of what their children have access to in the world. It shows me that parents are not preparing their children to be light in a dark world. Parents, if you are not preparing your children in how to act in a lost world, and even a lost social media world then we have pretty much lost the battle at this point. Yes, there are dangers of placing content (pictures, locations, and status updates) out there for anyone to read. Parents and mentors need to be proactive in educating your children and followers in proper social media etiquette.

In the past few months I have started encouraging students to use social media to share their faith with the nations from their social media accounts. This can even mean those that live in the Middle East. My main context is Muslim peoples so I usually train and challenge students to share their faith and look for friends and potential followers in other cultures that speak english. In the Arab world over 50% of Arabs that have a Facebook account mark English as their primary or default language. They do this for three reasons: 1) They speak English 2) They want to speak English or 3) They want you to think they speak English so you will be their friend. As a missionary in that context I want you to friend them and share the gospel with them. If you are interested in more information about this send me an email or a DM on Twitter and I'll hook you up.

I clearly think that social media is not a threat to youth ministry. I see a huge potential for using social media for sharing ones faith in the Facebook & Twitter culture. I also agree with Len Sweet who says that Twitter has the best potential for disciple-making because users follow people they want to hear or learn from but, I will talk more about that in another post later. Youth groups and youth ministers just like any other person in ministry need to use social media to its max potential for Kingdom purposes.

Tags: Students, Missions